On 11 May that year they were the beaten opponents as Manchester United secured a second double in three seasons thanks to a late Eric Cantona goal:

The day, outside of Manchester at least, is remembered less for United's triumph than for Liverpool's outfits before the game.

It's hard to imagine an FA Cup final in which sartorial choices are recalled more readilly than the winning goal, but that's what dressing up in cream Emporio Armani suits in public will do to a nation's collective memory.

The unlovely suits, inexplicably paired with sky blue shirts and a diagonally striped red and white tie that would shame the worst dressed, heaviest-smoking turf accountant, became the iconic and lasting image of a generation of tabloid-courting underachievers at Anfield.

The Liverpool team that day included David James, Phil Babb, Jason McAteer, Jamie Redknapp, Steve McManaman, Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore, a group that became known as the Spice Boys.

They were a talented, photogenic set of players emerging at a time when football was making its first fatal steps towards the quasi-celebrity netherworld it has inhabited ever since.

The Spice Girls' debut single wasn't released until six weeks after the cup final, but by then the Liverpool group had cemented its reputation as undisciplined, overly motivated by money and crass with it.

Redknapp and James modelled for Armani, even Neil Ruddock has since boasted that they were "the first boys to get big money. We all had Porsches and Ferraris and Page 3 girls in bed. We re-wrote football history. It was great times."

James had arranged for the side to wear the suits, and his preoccupation with designer gear was even mentioned in Alex Ferguson's pre-match team talk, according to Gary Neville's autobiography.

"Keep playing the ball around their area," Neville remembers Ferguson saying, "because David James will probably be waving at Giorgio Armani up in the directors' box."

The cream suits were bad, but the green and white quartered away shirt Liverpool wore that day was also pretty horrendous, a sad outfit for Ian Rush to wear in what would be his last ever appearance for the club:

Jamie Redknapp was one of the Liverpool players to object to the Spice Boys tag, but perhaps not in the way you'd expect: "Let's face it," he said, "the Spice Girls are at the top of their profession and we are still trying to get to the top of ours, so I hardly think it is a good nickname."

The group would remain nearly men under Roy Evans, but that reputation is disputed by Steve McManaman, who said: "The Spice Boys at one time consisted of eight or nine players and the press just used to change the personnel as they fancied.

"It was unfortunate because when we finished third in the league we got a lot of stick for it. At the time I felt very sorry for some of the lads involved. But it didn't bother me personally as I was playing very good football at the time.

"When we finished third and people saw us having a laugh and a joke, they thought we didn't care. Nowadays, when you finish third, everyone is thrilled to bits, everyone's excited about qualifying for the Champions League.

"Under Roy Evans we did that a lot, and did it by playing fantastic football, but because there were a few young lads who liked to enjoy themselves at times, people had misconceptions."